Chapter 4
For a moment, Gemma was certain she was hallucinating. The man from the holo-screen, he was here in the flesh. Wasn’t he?
How could he be here? It makes no sense.
Maybe… maybe to rescue me?
It was a tiny voice that whispered the last phrase, and a burst of hope filled her insides. Just staring at him calmed the world around her, making things less jarring, making her more able to filter out the endless input claiming her attention.
And then his eyes met hers and she felt like her entire body was being licked by flame.
He’s the catalyst. The one I’ve been waiting for, the one who calms the storm in my mind.
She’d always believed that it would happen someday. That the world would snap into place and suddenly make sense. Gemma had the unerring sense inside herself that an awakening would come. She just didn’t know how or when.
Until now.
“Gemma, your food will get cold.”
Charlie’s voice bounced off her consciousness, but this time, it was because Gemma chose to ignore the input, not because she couldn’t filter it.
Without taking her eyes off the male, she spoke. “I’m not hungry. Besides, artificial beef tastes like old socks smell.”
She heard Charlie’s gasp, felt her hand grip her arm. “You’re—you’re talking!”
Gemma registered the girl’s surprise but didn’t let it interrupt her singular focus. In as long as she could remember, she’d never been able to utter a complete sentence, let alone two. It was him. He was somehow doing this to her.
She stood up, her fork clattering onto the plate as she dropped it. Then she was walking forward, around the table and toward her savior.
A wall of white stepped in her path. “Now, Gemmaline, you know we don’t bother the visitors.”
No longer able to see his eyes around the bulk of Nurse Simmons, she lost her concentration, the world crashing in on all sides, attacking her senses. She tried to push her way around the woman, but Simmons had a hundred pounds on her, easy.Must try harder.
Then Simmons shifted and Gemma realized the table she’d been heading for was empty. Charlie came up behind her, taking her hand, attempting to lead her back to the table. “Eyes,” Gemma said, her face betraying her agony. “Eyes!”
Charlie sat her down, stroking her face gently. “What is it, Gemma? What’s going on?”
“Calm!” Down the hall, a chair was squeaking. Wind whistled through the crack under the outside door. She could smell chocolate on Charlie’s breath. There were thirty-eight peas left on the plate beside her.
Calm!
Charlie shook her head. “You’re gone again, aren’t you? I wonder what brought you out of it for those few minutes. Maybe we can do it again.”
Gemma closed her eyes and covered her ears, trying to block out the world and remember those eyes. Ears still covered, she stood up and started toward the door with a singular purpose. She would not let herself get distracted by the pattern of the floor tiles. Nor would she count the number of trays that were stacked beside the trash receptacle.
Focus.
She made it out into the hallway, where the food smells were muted, as were the conversations. Still, the hall held its own dangers. There were colored stripes running the length of the hallway, leading to different wards. She was yellow ward.
Yellow. Wavelength of 570 nanometers. Between green and orange on the visible light spectrum. The color of sunlight. The color of butter. A primary color in traditional color theory based on biological mammals’ vision systems, and a secondary color on the ancient red-blue-green color model of technology replaced by holo-vision—
FOCUS!
She was able to tear her mind away and drive herself forward, but just barely. If she didn’t find those eyes again soon, she’d be stuck there, reciting endless gibberish to herself, forgetting all about the awareness inside herself.
Without time to second-guess her direction, she wheeled off down the corridor, reaching out with all her senses to try and find a hint of the male. The sounds she heard battered at her concentration, threatening to take her off on all-consuming tangents with each second of exposure. She waded through them, trying to find the sound of his voice.
Instead, she tuned into the satellite programming playing in the guard’s booth. Two individuals were discussing the highlights of last night’s sporting match. Music was playing underneath their conversation, interspersed with announcements and sound effects. Gemma’s mind began cataloging chord progressions while converting the scores into exponential equations.
